It’S Not the Money, It’S Who It’S Going To: Life Lessons and Easy Guides

By Sophia Renee Oglesby

Determined to leave her daughter some kind of guide to help her through life after shes gone, author Sophia Renee Oglesby uses prepare for the worst and hope for the best as the foundation for her research to write one. In Its Not the Money, Its Who its Going To, Oglesby uses that research as the basis for a series of short stories that deliver a host of life lessons and early warning signs.

Its Not the Money, Its Who its Going To interconnects the fictional stories with a section of short, practical ideas covering a wide variety of subjects, an in-depth look at relationships, and an assortment of comfort food recipes. Oglesby offers a straightforward, common sense approach on assessing yourself and the life situation youre in, to make sure youre living in the best situation possible.

An eclectic mix of information, these life lessons and easy guides serve as a resource for those interested in having examples for comparison or starting points.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Oct 26, 2015
• ISBN: 9781480822023

Sophia Renee Oglesby

Sophia Renee Oglesby is a first-time author with fifty years of life lesson experience and a passion for making it easier for the next person. She lives near the foothills of Colorado with her daughter and husband of twenty-four years.

Book preview

It’s Not the Money

It’s Who it’s Going To

Life Lessons and Easy Guides

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Sophia Renee Oglesby

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Copyright © 2015 Sophia Renee Oglesby.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Archway Publishing

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Bloomington, IN 47403

www.archwaypublishing.com

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4808-2200-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-2201-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-2202-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015952242

Archway Publishing rev. date: 10/20/2015

Contents

Reflections

Author’s Note:

Life Lessons

Played Out In Fiction

1. The Promise

2. The Curse

3. Pauline/ peace on earth

4. Mary/ a life cut short

5. Mary/ mister nice guy

6. Pauline/ eyes wide shut

7. Mary/ got your back, sister

8. Katherine & Stephen/ do unto others, strike one

9. Pauline/ run for your life

10. Mary & Michael/ mister sandman

11. Katherine & Stephen/ emotional baggage, strike two

12. Pauline & Kirk/ shadows of the night

13. Pauline/ safety first, bat protocol

14. Katherine & Stephen/ back at you bitch, strike three

15. Pauline/creative writing

16. Mary & Michael/ i am my mother, my mother is me

17. Stephen/ wake-up call

18. Charles, Stephen & Katherine/ picking up the pieces

19. Mary & Vince/ dueling maestros

20. Pauline & Shadow/ she left without me

21. Pauline & Ben/ backyard apples, driving off a cliff

22. Charles & Stephen/ rise and shine

23. Mary & the Boys/ cheeseburger and fries

24. Katherine & Pauline/ birth of a website

25. Pauline & Kirk/ vampires, misconceptions

26. Charles/ comfortably numb

27. Katherine & Pauline/ the dark side

28. Stephen/ the pledge

29. Pauline & Katherine/ old wives tales

30. Stephen/ let the sunshine in

31. Pauline & Ben/ forever i lay with you

32. Stephen/ over my dead body

33. Pauline & Katherine/ lady luck

34. Mary & Pauline/ it’s not the money

35. Katherine & Stephen/ it’s who it’s going to

Easy Guides

36. The Basics/ out of the nest, into a house

37. Good Habits/ cleaning, inside – out

38. Household Hints/ one person’s trash is another person’s treasure

39. Get Outdoors/ teach someone to fish, feed them for life, ticks

40. Basic Reproductive System/ menstruation, eggs & sperm

41. Babies/ the first few days, cat litter fears

42. Home Maintenance/ painting, property

43. Organization Tips/ mortgage, jobs, vacation

44. Vehicle Maintenance/ know your fluids

45. Who am I going to ask? / mom page

Relationships

Personality Traits

46. Marriage Material/ are we ready?

47. Messages/ positive, negative

48. Verbal Abuse/ definitions, examples

49. Mind Over Madness/ manipulation

50. When a Man Hates a Women

51. Metamorphosis/ time for a change

52. Options/ relatively speaking

53. Coping Strategies/ keeping the upper hand

54. Dealing with It/ red flags, reality checks

55. Things to Consider

Recipes

Comfort Foods and Family Traditions

Soup/ it’s too hot

Traditional Family Recipes

Meal Planning/ basic grocery list coupons

Chicken Noodle Soup

Vegetable Beef Soup

Ham and Bean Soup

Spaghetti and Meatballs

Lasagna

Smothered Pork and Bean Burritos

Beef and Broccoli Stir-Fry

Jambalaya

Crockpot Beef Roast and Vegetables

Baked Chicken and Gravy

Scalloped Potatoes and Ham

Potato Pancakes

A Simple Thanksgiving

About this Book

For Kaitlyn

Written over the course of my fiftieth year.

Reflections

Some people approach turning fifty with the attitude that they’re at the halfway point in their life and they better turn it around and get busy chasing their dreams. But if you think about it, how many people are lucky enough to live to be one hundred? And of those that do, how many are physically able to chase? Think of how you’re going to feel in your nineties if in your sixties, conversations among family and friends turn into competitions on who’s had the most surgeries, who’s on the most prescriptions, and the winners are the ones who can raise their canes in the air. If you haven’t started a Bucket List by the time you turn fifty you should. And if you’re over fifty and you haven’t started one yet you’d better get busy, it takes time to make dreams come true.

Think your life forward to what you imagine the last of your good years will be. Then cut that number in half to see what your life’s halfway point will be, is or was.

Author’s Note:

Who am I going to ask when you die, Mom?

Where does a mother begin? The one thing in life that’s certain is we’re all going to die sometime, there’s no sweeping that one under the rug. My biggest fear would be who my daughter could trust and how would she know she could trust them. I would want her to find love, but if I weren’t there to throw in my two cents worth of common sense about relationships, I’d want her to have a good set of examples to compare her situations to so she could find her own answers.

If you prepare for the worst, everything that happens in between is easier to handle. My biggest concern regarding relationships for her would be for her to be in an abusive one. So I asked myself tough questions for her and research for my answers. I used all resources available to me and pulled from fifty years’ worth of life experience to come up with positive and negative examples. A positive healthy relationship is easy for the mind to thrive in, but a negative, verbally abusive one can be brutal and can destroy a woman’s psyche over time, sometimes with lifelong effects.

However, once I had what I felt I needed her to know written down, more of what I wanted her to remember filled the pages. So much so that I decided to write in sections for easier reference.

I knew if I would write something for my daughter that would allow me to eventually rest in peace, it would probably allow others a little peace also. I strived to make it impossible for this not to help somebody else in some way.

For most mothers, protecting their young isn’t a matter of choice, it’s burned into their memory.

My mom used to say, A woman’s purse reflect her state of mind, keep it organized. Get out and enjoy the sunshine. A way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Stop and smell the roses, just watch for the thorns. Look both ways before you cross the street. And, there are people out there who will hurt you.

I’ve always thought that life would be easier, with some sort of easy guide for life.

What would you want your kids to remember?

Life Lessons

Played Out In Fiction

This section is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, incidents, and examples either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or places or incidents or examples is entirely coincidental.

1. The Promise

Don’t worry, Virginia, she promised her best friend. I’ll take care of you and the kids.

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George came into the living room and put his arms around Virginia who was looking out of a window at a rainbow hanging over the lake, a lake that only hours before had been their cotton field. Though the rain had stopped temporarily, their property sat in the low point of the valley and the run-off still draining down from the hills around them was causing the water on their field to rise.

It’s just going to get worse, dear, George said squeezing her tighter and kissing her cheek. The reservoir is topped off, the waves are already splashing over the dam and there’s another storm coming in.

She looked at her husband with pleading eyes, she didn’t want leave but she knew he was right. They’d packed suitcases that were in the car already but leaving her mother’s china and all of their pictures, things she’d never be able to replace, broke her heart. They both looked around the room at all that they owned, all they’d invested their money into, their livelihood piled high around them. All would surely be lost if the house flooded and they had no insurance.

They had spent the day packing everything in boxes and piling them as high as they could on tables and chairs in hopes of keeping them above the impending flood water. George moved all of the dressers into one room, packing them tight to keep them from being pitched around and Virginia stacked the drawers on top. It gave Virginia hope that they’d have something to come back to, but George had heard the screams and panicked conversations from people over the Ham radio as their flood control efforts were breeched and the water began pouring in their homes, cutting off their power in minutes. He didn’t say anything to Virginia, but reports were coming in from further south that entire neighborhoods were completely under water after the second storm, the ground being saturated from the first cyclone.

We’ll be okay, Virginia, George reassured. We did the best we could do here. Batten down the hatches, that’s what we did right, partner?

Hope for the best but prepare for the worst, Virginia said smiling, but without conviction. She looked around the room at her life piled haphazardly in boxes, regretting not making a list of everything they were leaving behind. How could she possibly remember it all?

They looked out of the window again and the rainbow was gone. The lake had grown to reach the back of the radio shack and it was raining again. It wouldn’t be long before the house was surrounded with water and they would have no way out. A loud crack of thunder shot them both into action.

Get the kids and get in the car, Virginia, George said sternly.

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George and Virginia ran an amateur Ham radio show from their ranch in Southern California to communicate with their friends and fellow ranchers. George was always building his system bigger, adding sets to broadcast further out across the state. He had a small network of people whom he referred to as his captains, who watched for weather related issues and sent him bulletins to broadcast to all the other ranchers. The airwaves were already full with people in panic crying out for help and the rain was predicted to last for several more days. George had been up all night in the radio shack trying to keep up with the bulletins, marking with pins on his map the properties most likely to be under water now and broadcasting that information out to give precious time to those still ahead of the second storm and in imminent danger.

The break between storms gave George a chance to drive around and survey his property. His heart sank when he drove up to the ridge of the dam to check the water level of the reservoir their property sat below and saw that it was cresting, the waves from the wind now pushing it over the road. Being their only way out, he had to get his family out now, and he hoped for their sake, he hadn’t waited too long.

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Virginia and the kids were in the car waiting while George went to the radio shack to put out one last call to their friends and family to let them know they were leaving and to warn them about the dam breech. The shack had been filling with water from the backside closest to the flooded cotton fields, unseen by George. He took a moment to check the stability of the boards he’d nailed up on the outside of the shack to protect the windows from the wind and rain. The water level inside the shack had risen above the electrical outlets that the radio equipment was still plugged into, now haphazardly connected from the storms chaos, charging the water with electricity. When George stepped down into the shack to send out his last SOS, he was killed instantly.

Virginia was watching George as he opened the door and went in, though it was hard to see him clearly through the downpour and the fogged windows in the car. She was focusing on George’s image against the black inside the shack as he opened the door and stepped. She saw a sudden flash of light and heard a crack of thunder loud enough to cause her and the children to duck in their seats. Cold fear washed over her at the sudden realization that it might not have been lightning. Virginia sat up and rubbed the window to clear the fog, tears beginning to free fall from her eyes. She could see George’s feet in the doorway, she could tell he was down. A scream surged from within her as she open the car door to run to his side but she was silenced and immediately stopped when she saw that the flood water now circled the shack and she realized it could all be charged with electricity and it was heading her way.

The kids, Virginia. Run, save the kids, she felt his soul scream at her slamming her survival instincts into overdrive. The children crying out for their father sounded distant in the background as Virginia closed the car door, put it into gear and gunned it, she had to get over the dam before it was too late.

The wiper blades struggled on the windshield against the driving rain and the dirt road was hidden from view under several inches of water but Virginia knew the area well and used the trees to navigate her way to the main road. She could see the waves crashing over the dam flooding the road she needed to drive up and it scared her, but as each wave receded she could see where the main road was and where her road led up to it. If she could she could make it up the incline onto the main road between waves, she’d be able to get over the dam and make it to Anne’s, and she’d call for help there. Virginia watched the waves crashing for a moment to get her timing down. She didn’t hesitate, she saw her wave and she gunned it up the incline catching a little air and coming down hard on the main road. The car veered toward the reservoir but Virginia got it under control and stopped for moment, the water rushing over the road making her dizzy. She didn’t look down and she didn’t look back. She pressed her foot on the gas pedal and kept her hands firmly on the wheel until she drove past the familiar cluster of pines that told her she was out of the shadow of the valley and on her way to safety.

2. The Curse

Just as bloodlines define the characteristics of dogs, so do the bloodlines of people. Within the cells of some bloodlines lie demon seeds that like viruses, lie dormant until hate gives them life. They grow strong with greed, sprouting their way through their family’s lives like thistles, hiding spiked acts of cruelty behind deceptively pretty acts of kindness. They’ll show their faces in dehumanizing ways meant to strip their victims of their identity:

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Relax… Chill Out…I’m not saying this to be mean but…I could use a wife for about six weeks…I don’t have any use for her…I’ll make it up to you…You would just waste it…I was just kidding…You’re too sensitive…I’ve got a surprise for you…If I know my wife…It wasn’t my fault…You made me do it…I thought of everyone but myself…Do you really think that looks good…It’s high definition…You sound great…That was graceful…I’ll help you any way I can…She’ll get over it…It was worse for me…She’s fine…It’s not the money, it’s who it’s going to…Silence

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But with pure love, a kind brave heart, family and friends, the weeds can be pulled and the demon seeds killed.

3. Pauline/ peace on earth

Tears ran down Pauline’s face as she listened to her mom sing along to a song on the radio. The beauty of the Rocky Mountains and the smell of the passing pines made the song her mom was singing about mountain people being killed for their buried treasure seem real. She wondered if the summer camp her mom was taking her to would suffer the same fate.

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Her heart grew heavy as she watched her mom drive away in their green and wood paneled station wagon, wondering if she was going to remember to wave good-bye. Come on, Mom. Pauline watched as the car headed toward the bend in the road and out of sight. Her mom had the radio turned way up, Pauline could hear it from where she stood. Come on, Mom, she pleaded. The car kept going and her feet began to chase after it and her heart cried out, Mom! As the station wagon reached the bend, it finally slowed to a stopped. Tears of joy threatened to spill from her eyes as she watched her mom turn and look around to find her. Joy turned to fear as precious seconds ticked by and Pauline tore off her jacket and waived it wildly in the air and screamed, Mom, turn the radio down! Finally, their eyes locked and her heart melted when her mom smiled, put her fingers to her lips and then blew her a kiss. Pauline did the same and waved. She was relieved but she felt drained as her mom drove out of sight. It was the first time she would be away from her and Pauline missed her already.

In sudden need of her pillow and blanket, Pauline walked back to the crowds of people and piles of sleeping bags and backpacks near the busses. She found herself standing alone amongst the chaos of other crying children and their moms wondering what to do. A pretty teenage girl with her long brown hair tied in a braid approached her and handed her a piece of paper.

Don’t lose this, the girl said. It’s a song we’ll be learning tonight at the campfire.

The campfire, Pauline thought. She couldn’t take her eyes off of the paper, it felt heavy in her hands. She walked over to some logs that had been placed around on the ground like benches and she sat with the song sheet in her hands. Being only five, she couldn’t read all of the words but what she could understand seemed so sad. When they sang it at the campfire that night, Pauline realized it was the song her mom was singing on their way to camp. It was the first song that made her cry. She had no idea then, that it was a looking glass into her future and she would witness the song in many ways over the course of her lifetime.

By the end of her first day of summer camp, Pauline had memorized all of the words and the melody of the song and she promised herself that she would never forget it.

4. Mary/ a life cut short

Mary awoke on her husband’s grave, the bottle of vodka bleeding into the cold ground below her. Why did you leave me, Michael? she cried. We made the restaurant what it is today. They have no right, Michael. Those sons of bitches have no right to take that from me!

She pulled herself to her knees, and as she wiped the rain soaked hair from her face, the realization of where she was began to creep over her. It was dark now and a storm had passed over her and raged on over the city. Oh, God. The gate!

She ran to her car fumbling for the keys in her grave box. She could hear them jingle as she grabbed for them but they were wet from the rain and kept slipping from her fingers as she raced over the nameplates. Shivering now, she fought to get the key in the lock. Come on, Mary. Come on, Mary, she thought to herself as panic surged through her. They lock the gates at eight, she thought and as dark as it was, it must be well past nine. Don’t they make the rounds at night?

She fired up the engine of her yellow Baja and her dash lights flashed across her face like a bitch slap. 10:15, shit! She tried at first to manipulate the narrow roads that wove around the cemetery but it was taking too long, she wanted out. She veered her Baja past the mausoleum tower and headed straight toward the front gate. She drove up over the curb and onto the grass and found that it wasn’t too bad driving over the outer perimeter of markers, the nameplates just felt like speed bumps. But as she drove faster, further into the grounds, the nameplates gave way to markers and tombstones and they became harder to dodge. Marble and granite crashed around her like a meteor shower as she burst onto the main strip and skidded to a halt. She paused for a moment, she knew the gate would be locked. Can I build enough speed to break through it? She pulled another bottle of vodka out of her purse and raised it to her lips. She drank hard and fear gave way to vengeance. The bottle sounded distant falling from her hand as she reached down, jammed it into gear and gunned it.

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He laid his head against the cold porcelain to rest for a moment. The drool suspending from his lips gave way at last and the cold saliva that receded back in his mouth seemed to awaken him. His arms loosened from around his chest and he brought the tissue up to wipe the sweat and snot from his face. Crimson specks smeared across the white paper. It was cold now and his head was spinning, so he laid it down on the rug, pulled the towel down from the rack and he fell asleep.

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The tires spun, smoking on the rain slick asphalt. They gripped and shot Mary off like a rocket. The trees and tombstones soon blurred in her peripheral vision as she focused on the dark abyss before her. When her headlights found the steel of the front gate, the light reflected off in beams that comforted her like beams from a lighthouse in a storm. I’ll show you it’s who the money’s going to, she thought as she gripped the steering wheel tighter and pushed herself back in the seat to brace herself for impact. She was just about to close her eyes and pray when something in front of the gate caught her attention. The round-a-bout! Mary closed her eyes, but she didn’t have time to pray.

5. Mary/ mister nice guy

I don’t need a babysitter, her boss said as he handed Mary her walking papers. I want you to remember I’m being nice to you, do something with it.

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Shock numbed her mind and body as Mary drove home, her hand pressed on her stomach to keep the growing knot from ripping out of her like an alien. She’d seen it coming for some time, she’d been miserable at work for so long now but she’d paid her dues. She waited, sometimes impatiently, but it finally paid off and she got a retirement offer of sorts, though she couldn’t wait for the sting to subside. Swallow your pride, Mary. Take